From: Roger Beebe (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Feb 04 2006 - 14:49:38 PST
As someone whose spent much of the last 5 1/2 years cultivating an
audience for experimental film in a similar (?) remote cultural
outpost (Gainesville, Florida), I can report that the way Adam
describes it is fairly accurate and that there is a light at the end
of the tunnel, dim though it may be. Last Tuesday I did a public
screening of two Hollis Frampton prints (Zorns Lemma and Hapax
Legomena 1 (nostalgia)). The print rental cost us $192 (from Film-
Makers Coop). We advertised the show as a $3 suggested donation, but
we also explicitly announced that no one would be turned away. (This
is probably not the way to maximize our take, but we figured it'd be
better to maximize the audience instead.) We sent out a few emails &
threw up a few flyers & were surprised to discover that 100+ people
crammed themselves into the art gallery where we did the show for 92
minutes to watch a couple of experimental films on a Tuesday night.
We used a classroom projector that I purchased for $10 from the
School Board of Alachua County (although I'll admit that I've bought
lots of these $10 projectors just to get one good one). I bullied my
production students (28) into coming out to the show & I did offer
extra credit to my other class (and had about 15 takers from that),
but everyone else came on their own hooks. The door ended up being
$183, which means with shipping our out-of-pocket expense is probably
about $50, but we'll make that up by doing cheap shows like screening
educational films in rock clubs &c.
It's exciting to know that there's enough interest in a town like
Gainesville to make this a basically break-even affair, although I
did find myself wondering at the end of the evening if we'd have this
level of success if we did it more often or with work that's less
well known. It's something though, and definitely a step in the
right direction.
So,
Roger
On Feb 4, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Adam Hyman wrote:
> Hi Jorge,
>
> Now we’re cooking!
> You now have the next few tasks:
>
> Contact the people you know of in Lisbon, and those that Pip lists
> below. Tell them that you are interested in screening in your
> town, or the closest larger town, as appropriate. Find out if they
> are having any guests come, and ask if you can contact the guests
> to see if they would come to your area as another stop on a tour of
> Portugal. Also ask if they those organizations might be willing to
> come to your town as well. Or even just ship you the films after
> they are done with them (which you would have to coordinate with
> the distributor as well).
>
> 2. Find a venue. The ideal is an room with 16mm and video
> projection that can seat probably 20-50. Maybe a local university
> has something already appropriate. You’ll also want to advertise
> at the university. Target appropriate classes, art galleries, and
> cafes.
>
> 3. You’ll have to raise some money for transportation and
> shipping. This is of course the hard part. Maybe you can find 20
> interested people each willing to put in 20 Euros to start, for an
> initial fund. Then you’ll have to charge admission as well, and/or
> try to get grants.
>
> 4. Ideally find one other enthusiastic volunteer to help you,
> especially with publicity and ticket selling.
>
> It’s several steps, but they are all concrete and attainable. (You
> can see why, though, that there aren’t lost of microcinemas
> everywhere, and why they don’t usually last a long time.)
>
> Coordinating with other organizations in Portugal will help with
> travel expenses for guests, or reduce costs for shipping prints and
> tapes.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Adam
>
>
> On 2/4/06 2:02 PM, "Pip Chodorov" <email suppressed> wrote:
>
>> There have been quite a few screenings in Portugal in recent
>> years. Light Cone sent quite a large program there a few months
>> back. There is also a Portugese film group who came to our film
>> lab meetings in Brussels last December. Here is a short text about
>> them from the Nova website. Their link is http://
>> www.incrivelclub.com.
>> -Pip Chodorov
>>
>> "At a short distance from Lisbon, in Almada, an old and
>> charismatic ciné-theatre, closed for 12 years, is the shelter of
>> the Incrivel Club. Located in a working-class area, the Incrivel
>> club inherits the common popular imagination, which today, shows
>> itself in a quite glamourish way. The Club is also open to other
>> artistic skills, such as music, performance and even circus acts
>> (due to its high ceilings). In the near future, the Club should be
>> able to welcome artists and develop projects with foreign
>> partners. The Club also works together with Nucivo, an association
>> that is part of Lisbon University and active in documentary and
>> vídeo film-making."
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>
>>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.